Introduction

The study of ‘South–South relations’ is of increasing interest to states, policy-makers and academics, ¹ often due to a professed desire to identify ways to maximise the potential benefits of the policies and practices developed by states across the global South. Especially since the 2010s, European and North American states and diverse international agencies have recognised (arguably especially in light of the financial crises which have led to pressures on their own aid allocations) the extent to which Southern states can ‘share the burden’ in funding and undertaking development, assistance and protection activities. As such, United Nations (UN) agencies, International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs) and powerful donor states are actively promoting both the ‘localisation of aid’ and South–South partnerships more broadly as a means of promoting sustainable forms of human development. Following the expansion and reconfiguration in 2004 of the ‘Special Unit for South–South Cooperation of the United Nations Development Programme’, the UN Development Programme’s 2013 Human Development Report ‘call[ed] for new institutions which can facilitate regional integration and South–South cooperation’. The Report, entitled The Rise of the South, noted that ‘[e]merging powers in the developing world are already sources of innovative social and economic policies and are major trade, investment, and increasingly development cooperation partners for other developing countries’ (UNDP 2013, p. iv), before concluding, ‘The South needs the North, and increasingly the North needs the South’ (2013, p. 2).